RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolinians will need to wait 45 minutes longer for their results Tuesday evening after the state elections board extended hours at a precinct that opened late until 8:15 p.m.
The state of North Carolina does not begin releasing vote counts until the last precinct closes.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections held an emergency meeting at 1 p.m. Tuesday to discuss extending the hours of four precincts.
The included precincts are Bluford Elementary School in Greensboro, First Missionary Baptist Church in Concord, Plainview Fire Station in Dunn and Sampson County Adult Daycare in Clinton.
The NCSBOE said that precincts were supposed to open at 6:30 a.m. These four locations opened late.
Now, the Greensboro location will close at 8:04 p.m., the Concord location will close at 7:47 p.m., the Dunn location will close at 8:15 p.m. and the Clinton location will close at 7:54 p.m.
All other precincts will close at 7:30 p.m.
The state board only considers extending the hours for locations that opened more than 15 minutes late and locations that were interrupted for more than 15 minutes. The amount of time added cannot be more than the amount of time that the precinct was closed or interrupted.
The precinct at Bluford Elementary School in Greensboro opened polls at 7:04 a.m. Guilford County Board of Elections Director Charlie Collicutt said he was told about 10 voters waited until polls opened, and no voters left.
The precinct at First Missionary Baptist Church in Concord opened late at 6:47 a.m. due to computer issues. Doors did not open until 6:47 a.m., and they do not know if any voters left because the doors were closed.
The precinct at Plainview Fire Station in Dunn opened at 7:15 a.m. due to printer errors and a delay in staff contacting the elections board regarding those errors. The NCSBOE reports that some voters did leave and precinct officials did not get their names.
The precinct at Sampson County Adult Daycare in Clinton opened at 6:54 a.m. due to printer errors. The NCSBOE reports that some voters did leave and precinct officials did not get their names.
The state board approved an extension for each precinct by the amount of time that each opened late.
